1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a printer and a printer driver capable of moving a recording medium in the form of an individually-cut sheet a rolled sheet, e.g., paper, cloth or a special sheet relative to a printing mechanism in different conditions of transport for pitch feed. In particular, the present invention can be applied to recording apparatuses, such as copying machines and facsimile machines, communication apparatuses, office apparatuses, and multipurpose apparatuses, which may include combinations thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, in recording apparatuses connected to host computers and other units and capable of recording and outputting images, color recording and monochromic recording are performed separately from each other.
In multi-color recording, ink of three colors, i.e., yellow (Y), magenta (M), cyan (C), or four colors consisting of these colors and black (K) is used and the amount of ink is therefore liable to increase. Accordingly, the quality of a resulting recorded image is liable to deteriorate by blurring or the like. Further, it is necessary to drive recording heads for ejecting inks of three or four colors in a recording apparatus for such multi-color recording. Correspondingly, this necessitates an increase in the size of a power source for the recording apparatus.
A recording method using a fine mode has been provided to solve these problems. In this recording method, a recording portion of a head formed from a multiplicity of printing driver elements is divided into partial regions and an image is recorded on a recording medium in such a manner that one portion of the recording medium is scanned a given number of times with one set of the partial regions. In this recording, a thinned-out image is formed in each scanning cycle so that the corresponding complete image is completed by scanning the given number of times. According to this method, the amount of ink ejected in one scanning cycle is reduced, so that blurring in images is limited. Also, the number of driver elements driven at one time is reduced, which effect allows a reduction in the size of the power source for driving the head.
Even if such driving is performed, the period of time for recording a plurality of colors on a recording medium cannot be reduced, although improvements in image qualities and reductions in the size and the cost of the recording apparatus can be achieved. This is because the width of a portion of the recording medium on which an image is recorded by one scanning cycle is limited to the width of each partial region of the head.